Perdue: Southern Border Crisis Is “Staggering”

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) talked about his trip to the southern border and said the crisis is “staggering.”

Sen. Perdue visited the border on early Monday morning with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) to see the border security crisis firsthand. The two Republicans saw illegal crossing hotspots and received real-time briefings from border patrol agents.

Perdue and Daines’ trip came as Congress works on passing a potential compromise bill that would provide a fraction of President Donald Trump’s requested $5.7 billion in border wall funding, as well as increased border patrol officers.

Sen. Perdue said that he has gained a different perspective from his trip to the border and called the security crisis, “staggering.” He said:

I have a different perspective coming back from the border. We were out there all night with border patrol agents who were apprehending people crossing there illegally. It was shocking to see the security crisis there on the ground. There are Mexican drug cartels right across the river who are violently opposing each other and trying to dominate that sector. So, there are a lot of drugs coming across that border. Both at the POEs (Ports of Entry) but also literally on rafts coming across the river. So we saw the rafts, we saw the scouts, we saw the mules as they call them that actually bring drugs across in open daylight. It was staggering.